Biden's foreign policy focus must return to the backyard of the US

UNITED States President Joe Biden's foreign policy has so far been defined by decisions taken towards far-flung nations including China and Afghanistan, yet events closer to home are now demanding his greater attention.

Despite the International Monetary Fund last week forecasting a regional economic rebound of around 6 per cent in 2021, and 3 per cent in 2022, recent weeks have seen protests across Cuba, a presidential assassination in Haiti, plus unrest in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

So US 'red lights' are going off across South America and add to this too that Mr Biden has a cool relationship with the leader of the so-called giant of the region, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been called the "Tropical Trump" for his maverick populism.

Politically, this is bad news for Mr Biden, especially given the potential impact on the electoral politics of US 'swing states' like Florida. However, it also matters more broadly too, given wider US dependence on the region, including the fact that Venezuela is the third largest oil exporter to the US and has one of the world's largest proven oil reserves.

GEOPOLITICS

Combine this with geopolitics too. Some military officials have long warned that US attention to other geographies including the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific has left a power vacuum in South America that China and Russia are filling. Take the example of Admiral James Stavridis, the commander from 2006-2009 of US Southern Command (which covers South America), who highlighted that his entire budget for 12 months was what his counterpart in the US Central Command received for only a few days of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

BT in your inbox

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign Up

Sign Up

The charge sheet here is that while Washington has been 'sleeping', Moscow and Beijing have been deepening their support for illiberal regimes, such as Venezuela, that complicate regional security and hold back the regional transition towards democracy. Moreover, with the region hit hard by the pandemic, there is a fear that China in particular is looking to embed its influence by building more than three dozen ports in the region with significant loans that can be used for political leverage.

Cuba policy is only one of the case studies of US drift in the region. April marked the tenth anniversary of Fidel Castro's exit from power and the Biden administration is under growing pressure from Congress to nail down its stance towards the socialist island state.

Mr Biden has said he wants a significant reset in relations, but in the absence of that happening, legislators in Congress are seeking to fill the vacuum. Take the example of Republican Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Ted Cruz, all of whom have potential 2024 presidential ambitions, who are seeking to block Mr Biden from any liberalisation initiatives akin to that championed by former president Barack Obama.

By contrast, several Democrats, including Representative Jim McGovern and Senator Patrick Leahy, are pushing for a more open policy. They have highlighted that Mr Biden campaigned on reversing the travel and remittances policies towards Cuba, and expanding US diplomatic relations with the island state.

While many Democrats generally favour change, and Republicans the status quo on Cuba, it is not a completely straight-lines, partisan issue. For instance, powerful Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has long opposed any reform towards the island state.

Many congressional Democrats supporting change fear that the administration will keep pushing back action and then proceed only incrementally. The latter remember here that it was not till the last two years of Mr Obama's presidency that he acted on this controversial normalisation agenda.

One of the reasons for Mr Biden's caution is not just the massive issue agenda he is already tackling, including the pandemic. In some key swing states, especially Florida, US policy towards Cuba is a major polarising issue and Democrats are on the defensive.

Last November, Democrats lost two congressional seats in South Florida. This is a geography with high concentrations of people from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua who have moved to the US because of dissatisfaction with their leftist governments.

Mr Biden is also aware how, in the 2016 presidential election, multiple Republican presidential candidates, including Mr Cruz and Mr Rubio, were vociferously opposed to Mr Obama's Cuba opening and sought to build political capital from it. Meanwhile, Mr Trump used his standard argument that he would, as president, have negotiated a better settlement with Cuba than Mr Obama.

This partisan gulf will not disappear soon and is one key reason why Mr Biden may move only gradually on reversing Trump-era policies towards the island. While a reset in relations remains likely, it could need to wait till the second half of his term.

The Cuba example highlights how the challenging US relationships with much of South America by no means began with Mr Biden's presidency. Ties were troubled during the Trump era too, including with the-then president threatening "military options" to intervene in Venezuela.

Mr Trump's wild rhetoric then was unfortunate, given long memories on the continent of US interventionism there dating back to at least when the US invaded Mexico in the mid-18th Century. Since then, Washington has intervened periodically across the region, including Haiti in 1994, and this lingers in the region's collective memory.

GENUINE STRATEGIC FOCUS

Amid all the tumult of recent weeks, what many hope Mr Biden will bring to US policy is a genuine strategic focus in coming years, building from the original 1990s North American Free Trade Agreement which consolidated Mexico's embrace of free market, international-orientated policies.

What many in Washington now advocate is a coherent, comprehensive approach that can help bind in the region's other emerging markets and/or newly democratic governments towards pro-market reform through US commitment to economic, political, and security partnerships throughout the hemisphere.

To be sure, some modest attempts have been made at this. For instance, the Obama administration's brainchild of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Mr Trump subsequently rejected, includes both Chile and Peru, but was never intended as a comprehensive regional strategy.

Amid growing concern about post-pandemic regional social unrest; governance challenges; and elections that could shift economic policy orientation, there may now be a limited opportunity to get traction with this agenda in coming months. The 'window' comes from the economic rebound with the IMF lifting previous growth forecasts for the region, driven by the strong performances of the Brazilian and Mexican economies.

Despite the legion of obstacles, domestic and foreign, the prizes on the horizon are stronger bilateral partnerships; locking in US influence; and a new foundation stone for sustainable regional growth. Will Mr Biden find the bandwidth to seize the opportunity, or let it slip?

• The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics